Category: Poetry

My fingers weave a rug for my ancestors;
The ones who stole scraps from factory floors
In clock-faced brick mills in treeless towns.
Who heard meadow grasses whispering in golden snippets
Snatched up the blue-green lilt of bracken tracks in dusken hills
And, feeling the warmth of old stone in ochre swatches,
Wove them all in, so the children warmed their feet
And remembered that once they ran free.
 
My fingers weave a rug for my sisters;
Women who sing with buzzards and drum to the North.
Who travel out on dog sleds to ice floes where worlds end
To gather songs of snow and blood and bone, and
Carry them back, and gather us in, and sing them for us
By a hearth so warm and bright that the ice starts to thaw
And wilder melodies flow back in amidst the
Meltwater; the tears of homecoming.
                                                                    
My fingers weave a rug for my sisters and brothers;
Those who step into the flames, and use the
Kindling of their guilt to spark the flame of their innocence.
Who torch their shame on a bonfire of wild abandon
So fierce, that the inferno of expansion burns
All their fear away, so only love remains.
I weave them Waves of Bliss to remind them,
Reflecting their infinite waves.
 
My fingers shred the shirts my brothers wore
Through their night sweats, and slice up the
Cheap cotton of dying lakes and exhausted soils.
Untangle acid wools from mountain deserts,
And weave them all into a rug so strong,
And so soft, that it holds newly birthing worlds
While my voice and tender heart sing along
To all of our freedom songs.
 
September 2017